Female body building - any advice for beginning ladies?

A lady friend wants to start body building, but is having a hard time finding info for female body builders - specifically the different things she needs to consider for a woman's physiology, especially since she is just starting. Any advice or resources you can send would be appreciated.

Women's physiology and chemistry is different than men's. They need to be aware of things like getting too lean stops their menstrual cycle - and they need to know the long-term impacts that has on their body/child-bearing possibilities, along with a possible long list of other potential problems. Taking steroids or creatin will be different for them due to the different hormonal make up of women vs. men - what should she be aware of with these things? Also, she is looking for some of the basic building blocks - when starting from scratch, what is the best order in which to begin building the body (cardio, strength, endurance, building mass, losing weight, etc.)?

Was just hoping to find some truly basic advice, which so far has proven elusive on the wider Internet. And I can't believe all the body builders on RJ have never worked out with a female.

CrabNebula saidI think you're in the wrong neighborhood of the internet.

Women's physiology and chemistry is different than men's. They need to be aware of things like getting too lean stops their menstrual cycle - and they need to know the long-term impacts that has on their body/child-bearing possibilities, along with a possible long list of other potential problems. Taking steroids or creatin will be different for them due to the different hormonal make up of women vs. men - what should she be aware of with these things? Also, she is looking for some of the basic building blocks - when starting from scratch, what is the best order in which to begin building the body (cardio, strength, endurance, building mass, losing weight, etc.)?

Was just hoping to find some truly basic advice, which so far has proven elusive on the wider Internet. And I can't believe all the body builders on RJ have never worked out with a female.

Since the IFBB got rid of Ms. Olympia, and even before then, women's "bodybuilding" was/has become a niche interest with information being scattered throughout the web. I've never really come across entire programs, just workout examples in articles featuring competitors.

Ms. Olympia is gone, but what has taken the competition's place is is Women's Physique. Think Corey Everson, the perennial Ms. Olympia of the 1980s who represents the standards the federation is attempting to reestablish. So look more in that direction. "Women's Physique training programs" will bring up more useful information than "women's bodybuilding".

Unfortunately, there's no central portal on women's physique training - and I believe any created would eventually get taken over by schmoes - but there are some good articles to get you started out there. You both just have to keep looking to find one that suits her goals.

For a good strength base, you can read up on Joy Victoria. She writes for women, but many programs appearing outside of her site (fitnessbaddies.com) can center on men if they are the primary readership. 3 Steps to Getting Your Girl to Train (https://www.t-nation.com/training/steps-to-getting-your-girl-to-train) is one example, but it does include solid programs. Full body, strength, and upper/lower. All of which are appropriate for you to do as well. Joy Victoria will lead to other women in the strength and figure field.

Now, if you're willing to work for it, there's a lot of comprehensive physique training from Figure Athlete that can be recovered with the Wayback Machine. Figure Athlete was the sister site of T-Nation which focused on women's training. It provided full programs, training tips, and dietary information. It was just as good as the primary site since the articles were from women who were competitors, or physique trainers whose job it was to get women onto the stage.

These two links in the Wayback Machine (https://archive.org/web/) will get you started. The second is for articles by Jeff Kuh (aka Wet Wolf on the site), the women's physique and sports performance trainer who pretty much ran Figure Athlete. Jeff Kuh's programs lean towards full-body, and here's a link to one that did appear on figureathlete.tmuscle.com. The Total Body Assault: http://www.wetwolftraining.com/the-total-body-assault/

"Wet Wolf's Total Body Workout" found in the article "Kiss Bodybuilding Workouts Goodbye!" is another you want to look out for.

As for dietary recommendations on the defunct site, I do remember 0.8g protein per lb. of bodyweight was fairly standard, but carb and fat varied on training days and non-training days. You'll find several recommendations through the archive. There's also something about women responding better to slightly higher carbs on lower-body days or lower-body intensive total body workouts.

I would direct you to bb.com for more up-to-date information, but part of me really hates that site.

FN_R5000I said"Since the IFBB got rid of Ms. Olympia, and even before then, women's "bodybuilding" was/has become a niche interest with information being scattered throughout the web. I've never really come across entire programs, just workout examples in articles featuring competitors.

Ms. Olympia is gone, but what has taken the competition's place is is Women's Physique. Think Corey Everson, the perennial Ms. Olympia of the 1980s who represents the standards the federation is attempting to reestablish. So look more in that direction. "Women's Physique training programs" will bring up more useful information than "women's bodybuilding"...."

Thanks for the great leads! Really appreciate your thorough understanding of the topic. I hadn't realized women's 'bodybuilding' and changed to 'physique', but was aware of the change in judging standards for women's competitions. As you note, so much of the information for women is stuffed inside scattered articles. It becomes time consuming to try and piece together all the individual pieces......